Hannah's Postpartum Recovery and Maternity Leave

Unfortunately, when Shia was just three days old, we ran into some unforseen challenges with my health. I woke up on the 22nd with the left half of my face drooping. Since my blood pressure had been running a bit high throughout the end of my pregnancy, we were told to head into the ER out of concern of pre-eclampsia and stroke. My milk had just come in that morning, so I fed Shia, sobbing, wondering how we were going to get him his next feed since we didn't want to risk bringing a three-day-old into an ER. When we arrived at the hospital, we decided that Jared would stay in the car with him while I went in alone (we had a good friend meet me there later). Getting out of the car and walking away from both my husband and brand new baby in that moment, not knowing when or in what state I'd see them next, felt impossible.

After many hours of monitoring and tests and utalizing a hospital pump to send bottles of milk out to the car, I was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy, a rare form of facial paralysis which is known to affect pregnant and postpartum people at a greater rate than the general population. Though it can be painful and difficult to cope with, it usually resolves within a few weeks to months. Luckily, my blood pressure was not high enough to be admitted, but I was diagnosed with postpartum hypertension and was told I would need to monitor my blood pressure and other symptoms closely for the next several weeks in order to make sure postpartum pre-elampsia wouldn't develop. The anxiety of the possibility of my blood pressure suddenly spiking to dangerous levels kept me from getting the sleep I so desperately needed in those next many nights, until thankfully my readings started to stabilize over the course of the next week.